About Put the Guidebook Down
A modern travel psychology show
Why This Show Exists
Travel used to change us. Today it mostly entertains us. We collect destinations. Photos. Recommendations. Bucket lists. But somewhere along the way, we stopped asking why.
Why do we miss places more than people? Why does home feel different after we come back? Why does a two-week trip feel longer in memory than the two years before it? Put the Guidebook Down exists because the most interesting part of travel was never where you go. It's what happens inside you while you're there.
That question isn't abstract for me. I spent two years in Moldova as a two-time Fulbright English Teaching Assistant, then a year in Indonesia as a Boren Fellow. Three years living abroad, learning languages, and embedding in communities most travelers only pass through. In both locations, I wasn't just visiting. I was living there, immersing into the local culture and daily life.
Somewhere in those three years, I started noticing the answer in myself before I had language for it: coming home and feeling like the life I left didn't necessarily "fit" me anymore. I felt myself grow in ways my friends and family couldn't understand, and then being told that "I'll get used to being back." So I kept trying to "get back to normal," but realized that it wasn't a fair ask of myself and that's not who I wanted to be. In conversations with my colleagues or other expats, I learned that I was not alone in this situation. But no one explained that this was what happens when people live abroad. People just don't talk about it. The more conversations I had with expats, and reflecting on myself and my experience, I found layers of topics, emotions, and experiences from travel that as an industry are not covered.
So I decided to start the discussion. Put the Guidebook Down is where I actually talk about the topics that no one covers, or maybe don't want to acknowledge, when it comes to travel. Here, we answer those questions and try to explain the reason why, one episode at a time.
Read the longer essay: I've Been Making the Wrong Show
Kiara's Experience
- Fulbright English Teaching Assistant, Moldova | 2022–2024 (two times grantee)
- Boren Fellow, Indonesia | 2024
- Field research on how tourism shapes cultural and linguistic preservation, Indonesia
- Speaks Bahasa Indonesia, Russian, Romanian, French, and English, learning a new language every year; (2026 is Turkish!)
- 3+ years living abroad
What the Show Actually Covers
Three throughlines, all built from real trips and named psychological research rather than generic advice.
Travel Psychology
How memory, identity, and perception actually work under travel's conditions.
Example: “The Best and Worst Trip You've Taken Are Remembered the Same Way,” on the peak-end rule and duration neglect.
Modern Travel Critique
A clear-eyed look at influencer culture, overtourism, and "hidden gems."
Example: “Locals Will Show You What Influencers Won't,” on parasocial trust and information cascades.
Identity Abroad
Who you become somewhere unfamiliar, and what happens when you come back.
Example: “Coming Home Isn't Landing. It's Starting Over,” on reverse culture shock and the W-curve model of readjustment.
In the Field
Travel Deeper. More Meaningfully.
Put the Guidebook Down isn't the only place this initiative lives. Learn more about immersive cultural travel at Rambling Adventurista, and catch full video episodes plus behind-the-scenes content on Put the Guidebook Down's YouTube channel.
Listen
New episodes every week on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and more, with the full essay version of every episode published on Substack.